47 jail inmates in quarantine

The jail authorities put up 47 inmates from different districts in quarantine since they had been suffering from fever, cough and sneezing, deputy additional inspector general of prisons Colonel Md Abrar Hossain told New Age Thursday.

He, however, said that these inmates samples were not collected for testing ‘as none of them are infected with coronavirus’.

A jail doctor told New Age that these inmates were immediately quarantined.

He said that there were no kits in the jails for screening coronavirus infection.

The jail authorities only use thermal scanners on new inmates and ask them whether or not they suffered from fever, cough and sneezing or had been abroad before they were sent to jails.

Washing hands and attire of new inmates has been made mandatory in the jails, said jail officials.

‘If anyone admits, he had been suffering from any of these problems, we quarantine them,’ said the doctor.

He said that jail hospital wards had been readied to isolate suspected corona patients.

He said that social distancing could not be ensured in jails.

In the last week the jail authorities opened telephone booths at all the jails so that the inmates can contact their family members.

Dhaka Central Jail’s senior superintendent Iqbal Kabir Chowdhury told New Age Wednesday that 14 wards of a newly constructed building named ‘Banaphul’ was under use as a quarantine centre where 12 inmates had been quarantined.

He said that now eight or nine inmates had been quarantined inside the Dhaka Central Jail.

Deputy inspector general of prisons for Mymensingh Division Jahangir Kabir told New Age that he did not allow more than two visitors at jail gates and sent a proposal to the Department of Prisons to introduce the system of sending money to the inmates’ accounts by families through mobile banking.

Jashore Central Jail’s senior superintendent Subrata Kumar Bala told New Age Tuesday that his jail was providing new dresses to the new poor inmates and asked them to wash hands with sanitizers before they were quarantined.